Two people were shot and killed in a three-hour span in Newark Monday night into this morning.Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger

NEWARK — Two people were killed and another wounded in two shootings about three hours apart in the city’s South Ward, officials said.

Kiamesha Minton, a 20-year-old resident of Rochester, N.Y., was shot and killed while sitting in a parked car on Dewey Street around 11 p.m. Monday, and another female was wounded, according to Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray.

It appears one of the women was targeted – and the shooting may have been related to a domestic violence incident, according to Anthony Ambrose, the prosecutor's chief of detectives.

The second victim, whose identity was withheld, was treated and released from University Hospital early Tuesday morning.

Three hours and a half-mile away, 19-year-old Aljabree Adams was shot and killed on West Runyon Street, Ambrose said.

No definite motive has yet been established in either killing, and whether they’re related is still under investigation, Ambrose added.

A man who lives next door to the crime scene on Dewey Street said he heard the shots and talked to detectives.

"I heard the shots and I hit the floor," the man, who didn't want to give his name, said. He also said he saw a car last night parked in front of the crime scene that he hadn't ever seen before.

Minton was attempting to intercede on behalf of her female friend, who was in a fight with a man, according to Kay Thompson, her grandmother, who lives in Rochester, N.Y. - where Minton grew up. Thompson said she wasn't surprised that her granddaughter would defend a friend, she said.

"That was just her nature - undying loyalty to family and friends," Thompson said. "But that's apparently what killed her."

On West Runyon Street at dawn this morning, some crime-scene tape lay ripped on the sidewalk, but the street was silent. Neighbors who also didn't want to be named said they heard a car peeling away in the middle of the night, but most said they were sleeping and didn't hear any gunfire. Cheyenne Fryer, who’s lived on the street for several years, was sitting on his stoop waiting for a ride to work early this morning. He too hadn’t heard anything the night before, he said.

But Fryer said there have been incidents on the street over the summer – a stolen car, another car crashed into the window at the corner grocery store a few weeks ago, and there was some kind of crime scene at an abandoned property nearby.